Apple previews Mac OS X Snow Leopard with QuickTime X - Page 2

Maybe I'm missing something, but the way I read the announcement, Snow Leopard is of no relevance to current Mac owners, unless you have a 4- or 8-core Mac Pro with some extreme high-end video card with more processing power than an iMac.

I don't think we need to get our panties in a bunch over having to upgrade to Snow Leopard for our current machines, but it does give a tantalizing idea of what regular Macs are going to be a year from now, when they ship with it!

I do think Dual Cores will benefit too though - optimizing over two cores is extremely important and the fact that the two companies, Microsoft and Apple, have not worked with this till now is greatly suprising and sad.

Its good to see Apple changing things up and doing this though.

Even for us, however, if they are optimizing code, it will still be great for users of computers that are less than 3 years old. It provides an ultrastable OS.

Exactly what I was thinking. The answer to 4 is probably yes if it is very cheap or free. If it's 129 and doesn't add much but helps performance on apps that need it, you'll probably see people running those apps upgrading, but most average users skipping it.

It does seem odd that they are hyping the javascript update so much when it's something that should be included with 10.5.x.

First I'd like to mention that Windows 7 isn't even expected to ship until Late 2009/Early 2010, which Snow Leopard will more than readily beat.

Things I'd like to see in Snow Leopard:
"Grand Central" - sounds like an expansion of NSOperation/NSOperationQueue
OpenCL (BTW, I cannot find anything about this online. Is this still internal LOOKING to be an Open Standard???)
ZFS - Please...ZFS snapshots = Snappy Time Machine. And while you have those 4 cores, might as well do on the fly disk compression and save some drive space.

Snow Leopard is the enterprise targeted OS X.
Pull the Exchange support from iPhone into the rest of the OS
mobileme for enterprises (on Server)

It doesn't seem like much of an upgrade unless you have a 64-bit (Intel) multi-core CPU, with a dedicated GPU capable of OpenCL and *lots* of RAM. Or, if you want to use Mail.app with an Exchange server.

What people seem to be missing here is that dropping PPC now would send a terrible message to the CIOs of the world. Dropping support for a 3 year old computer sets a horrible precedent that essentially tells the corporate world that unless they replace all their computers every 3 years, they risk having Apple pull the rug out from under them.

What a terrible message to send at a time when Apple has a real opportunity to get into enterprise.

Enterprise standardizes on a single OS across the organization whenever possible. For those running Windows everything from 8 year old Pentiums and Athlons to today's quad core based PCs can run the same OS. For those running MacOS there's no way to standardize on a single OS because old machines can't run Leopard and new machines can't run Tiger. Adding another set of OS requirements to the mix next year would make matters even worse.

1) Will it work on PowerPC Macs?
2) How much will it cost?
3) Will we really have to wait a year for a JavaScript engine that's in nightly webkit builds?
4) Will anyone upgrade if there are no new features?

1) I own a G5 and i hope SL drops it! Apple needs to focus on forward technology, not the past. M$ would benefit from this also.
2) Same. Mostly intended for new computers and speed junkies.
3) dunno
4) As others have said, stability and speed ARE features.

If OS X is becoming increasingly popular, viruses will soon be a threat. Hardening the OS for this day now is prudent. Ridding the OS of obsolete tech and writing a foundation to build new tech is critical to Touch and Speech technology.

Sure, those using email and the web don't need SPEED, but those doing even iMovie or FCE could use every bit of speed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. H

I for one am very happy to see a major software company focussing on performance rather than piling on more and more useless crap, aka "features".

Now that it looks like the clock-speed race is over in CPU land, and it's switched to a number-of-cores race, research and development into how best to leverage that parallel processing is vital.

Anyone know where to go to get more juicy info on Snow Leopard? How long was the presentation? Hopefully ars will have something at some point.

I agree. I think it is great to re-focus attention before the next wave of features.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stokessd

That strikes me as a subtle way of saying that our current OS is more buggy and crappy than we'd like and we're going to take a year and fix it all.

Sheldon

LOL Not even close! All code can be optimized and cleaned up. And while you are at it, why not build into it forward looking technology to build tomorrows features on it and take your time doing it, rather than try to rush the framework and feature set in one release.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pt123

So if it is just performance and stability, what is there to preview? Come look at see this computer "not crash", see how much faster the window opens when I double click?

I don't recall seeing where all the current features are being taken out. You can still show your friends that you're kool with all the current features, and the huge performance increase. The ease of use, along with speed should impress even your Dad.

1. Hopefully not. I hope they don't waste resources to support a computer nobody should have anymore.

What kind of a comment is this?

I have a dual 2.5 GHz PowerMac G5 at work and it suits me just fine. I have no real need for more speed in that particular environment, where I mainly use it as a multiple-Terminal/Web browser/IM/PDF viewer/X11/etc. type of setup.

Dropping PowerPC G4 support would be bad enough - but dropping G5 support is just silly.

also Enterprise like systems that are easy to open to swap parts out and they don't like haveing to ship the system out with HD to have it fixed.

They also like to reuse screens and not be tied to AIO systems.

They also tend to buy $600 to $1500 desktop systems and they don't $2200+ systems for evey user. They also tend to pass down older system when they get new ones and like to keep spare parts on hand.

Not the enterprise I work for. New machines every three years. Surplus or donate out the old ones. See ya! Maybe schools or smaller companies hold on to old hardware, but my understanding of accounting and what-not is that the machines get depreciated and then OUTTA THERE! Sure, labs and other odd-ball long-term installations hang around, but end users get new machines.

And while I'm here...

As others have said, under-the-covers optimizations, reorganizations, API clean ups, and other such things end users never see are a big deal and very worthy of a new OS release. Too bad Microsoft doesn't understand this and instead designs OSes to consume all resources of machines five years in the future. Apple has been VERY good about each OS version running even faster on older hardware.

I'm very glad to see Apple seriously trying to take advantage of modern CPUs and GPUs, and provide tools to expose that power to developers. I don't think MS has done anything similar.

I'd like to see more info about resolution independence. We know it's there, when will it become mainstream?

They can't add a whole host of features to Leopard if they are going to be spending so much of their time and resources making the cocoa touch layer for the whole Leopard OS. Things like copy and paste need to be properly thought through, and simply things like drag and drop and the full computer -> touch metaphors have to be properly created and tested from the ground up. That won't be an easy task and will take about 2 years to complete, of which they started this process sometime during last year probably.

That's why Snow Leopard won't be called Lynx, Cougar, or my personal favorite Lion. Essentially it will still be Leopard - even with a full cocoa touch, user interface layer and all the optimizations and security benefits.

Maybe the actual shipping name will be OS X Leopard touch, or maybe they'll keep the name Snow Leopard to allow them the room to market it to Mac users with existing (non-touch) hardware as a complete overhaul, and as part of the Mac touch to those new users as a speedy, multi-touch version of Leopard - without being tied into a single "touch" marketing term. It's optimized and touchy-feely!

It certainly won't be just optimizations and security benefits though that's for damn sure!

A lot of people are discussing that recently (J.G. etc.) what with the dropping of "Mac" in the OS's name and all.

I said they should have does this a while ago, but now the timing seems pretty perfect. The ball's in their court, it's time for Steve to get off his high horse and realize this won't last forever and there'll come a time when Linux is as as to use and Google releases their own OS. The timing is right, he made this mistake in the 80's. This could be different.

What people seem to be missing here is that dropping PPC now would send a terrible message to the CIOs of the world. Dropping support for a 3 year old computer sets a horrible precedent that essentially tells the corporate world that unless they replace all their computers every 3 years, they risk having Apple pull the rug out from under them.

What a terrible message to send at a time when Apple has a real opportunity to get into enterprise.

Enterprise standardizes on a single OS across the organization whenever possible. For those running Windows everything from 8 year old Pentiums and Athlons to today's quad core based PCs can run the same OS. For those running MacOS there's no way to standardize on a single OS because old machines can't run Leopard and new machines can't run Tiger. Adding another set of OS requirements to the mix next year would make matters even worse.

My God. Where did you get the idea that Apple was dropping support for anything with the launch of Snow Leopard?

All Apple is doing is optimizing Leopard so that "developers can create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs." Right now there is virtually nothing out there.

If you don't have a multi-core Mac (and I believe it will be for Intel's only) you stay with your current OS. If nobody updates their apps (that you use) to run on Snow Leopard, you stay with your current OS. And I don't see any reason why both OSs can't be on the same multi-core machine at the same time.

By the way, where did you see that new machines can't run Tiger? And how 'old' are the old machines you referred to. Keep in mind that Leopard will runs on PowerPC G4 (867MHz) processor which was launched in 2002.

Apple's current profits are in hardware. However, Steve himself noted how Apple is a software company in the event with Gates and Mossberg. Plus, there's that recent purchase of that PPC company...

Also, I see motivation for such a cross-platform move to compete with Linux. I know, I know: Linux is a long way off from prime-time when it comes to large adoption and ease of use. Still, it's hard to argue with FREE. --Almost as hard as arguing with EASY.

Apple is gearing-up to become a software company. Its stock will be $400 a share when this happens.

No...Apple has always been about "the whole package" and that includes hardware. Sorry.

Much quieter reactions over here than at MacRumors forums. Those folks over there are freaking out about 10.6 aka Snow Leopard. Most bellyaching about how there shouldn't be any charge for what they assume is nothing more than a service pack. Hey, M$ charges for SPs every now and again…

The Exchange support is interesting, what would be REALLY interesting is if Apple licenses Exchange Server and integrates it into OS X v10.6 Server…!

As for those that say Apple won't release any 'new' features with Snow Leopard, I say Apple is just keeping it close to the vest and fully intends to make 10.6 a multi-touch OS and beat M$ out the gate (Windows 7).

And finally, I would say yes to dropping PPC support and moving to strictly Intel support from 10.6 forward…

What people seem to be missing here is that dropping PPC now would send a terrible message to the CIOs of the world. Dropping support for a 3 year old computer sets a horrible precedent that essentially tells the corporate world that unless they replace all their computers every 3 years, they risk having Apple pull the rug out from under them.

What a terrible message to send at a time when Apple has a real opportunity to get into enterprise.

Enterprise standardizes on a single OS across the organization whenever possible. For those running Windows everything from 8 year old Pentiums and Athlons to today's quad core based PCs can run the same OS. For those running MacOS there's no way to standardize on a single OS because old machines can't run Leopard and new machines can't run Tiger. Adding another set of OS requirements to the mix next year would make matters even worse.

This post is wrong on multiple levels. Typical refresh cycles for hardware are 3-5 years desktop/laptop. Monitors last longer (in particular LCD). OS refreshes are probably longer. We get people asking for XP downgrades from Vista because they're companies aren't ready to deploy Vista on a large scale.

I've rarely seen 8yr pentiums still being used in any meaningful capacity by companies with a server/client based infrastructure. There comes a point where an old computer is costing your more to run (in power and management) than a newer computer would be.

I think you're trying to argue a point that you'll have has a weak foundation. Neither of us knows what a particular CIO will do but by the time Snow Leopard comes out (June 09) clearly PPC will be over the hill.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

Much quieter reactions over here than at MacRumors forums. Those folks over there are freaking out about 10.6 aka Snow Leopard. Most bellyaching about how there shouldn't be any charge for what they assume is nothing more than a service pack. Hey, M$ charges for SPs every now and again

The Exchange support is interesting, what would be REALLY interesting is if Apple licenses Exchange Server and integrates it into OS X v10.6 Server!

As for those that say Apple won't release any 'new' features with Snow Leopard, I say Apple is just keeping it close to the vest and fully intends to make 10.6 a multi-touch OS and beat M$ out the gate (Windows 7).

And finally, I would say yes to dropping PPC support and moving to strictly Intel support from 10.6 forward

I've never seen a bigger collection of Mac Morons. MacRumors seems to breed this ignoramus.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

Thank goodness radical change doesn't piss everyone off or we'd still be living in the Dark Ages, or caves.

Yes, there are the few that actually embrace change and push things forward faster. But for the most part, people want slow gradual, mostly unnoticeable changes. And that's how Apple is approaching this right now...rapid 1.5-2 year OS updates that bring evolutionary changes. And MS is approaching this differently...long 5+ year OS updates that bring huge changes that simply seem to piss off most people.

People look back at OS X 10.0 and realize that they've gone long ways...but only when they actually take a look back at OS X 10.0. In the midst of updates, the only see the smaller changes.

from what i've heard so far. maybe i'd pay 7 dollars for this upgrade. if they're lucky, 10.

most obvious thing to do is wait for 10.7 [unless 10.6 is some trap!!!]

hahaha.

Really depends on where you are in the hardware cycle. If you have a Mac Pro Quad or Octo Core and run heavy apps that will benefit from more cores and threading then Snow Leopard is worth the $129. Chances are you have a nice GPU that will finally get used for more than just a small amount of apps (if the OpenCL support is relatively easy to add and performs well)

Hell I know I'll upgrade regardless because hell I'm paying out the nose for gas which doesn't deliver anything new at $4 a gallon versus the $2.50 a gallon gas I bought last summer.

Media and Internet
Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, a streamlined, next-generation platform that advances modern media and Internet standards. QuickTime X features optimized support for modern codecs and more efficient media playback, making it ideal for any application that needs to play media content.

Because Snow Leopard delivers the fastest implementation of JavaScript to date, web applications are more responsive. Safari runs JavaScript up to 53 percent faster with Snow Leopard.*

Probably what I'll benefit from most.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

The real question is this: is QuickTime X a total rewrite or still building on the ancient QuickTime foundation? If it's the latter, I'm totally disappointed. We don't just need new codecs...we need new plumbing.

Chances are there will be a lot of code changes. From what I can tell Quicktime is still mostly a Carbon library, and with Apple's commitment to Cocoa, and the deprecating of Carbon, work will have to be done to bring it up to date.

BTW I know there are lot of people griping there won't be much in the way of new eye-candy, but what happens under the hood counts for a lot of what happens on the surface. If Apple can increase the performance and reduce the situations that cause beach-ball issues, this can only be seen as a good thing. To use the car analogy: having a great looking and well performing car is one thing, but having a great looking car that performs even better, is much better

What people seem to be missing here is that dropping PPC now would send a terrible message to the CIOs of the world. Dropping support for a 3 year old computer sets a horrible precedent that essentially tells the corporate world that unless they replace all their computers every 3 years, they risk having Apple pull the rug out from under them.

I'm guessing you haven't spent much time in the corporate world. There are companies that have only recently standardized on XP. Vista is way off the radar. By the time Vista becomes the corporate standard, at least a generation or two of hardware will have passed.

Quote:

What a terrible message to send at a time when Apple has a real opportunity to get into enterprise.

Enterprise standardizes on a single OS across the organization whenever possible. For those running Windows everything from 8 year old Pentiums and Athlons to today's quad core based PCs can run the same OS. For those running MacOS there's no way to standardize on a single OS because old machines can't run Leopard and new machines can't run Tiger. Adding another set of OS requirements to the mix next year would make matters even worse.

I've known many large corporations that had both Windows 2000 and Windows XP deployed at the same time. Apple is not corporate friendly as it is. I don't even think it's possible to downgrade a new Mac to something like Panther or Jaguar. That's what the corporate world would want.

First I'd like to mention that Windows 7 isn't even expected to ship until Late 2009/Early 2010, which Snow Leopard will more than readily beat.

Things I'd like to see in Snow Leopard:
"Grand Central" - sounds like an expansion of NSOperation/NSOperationQueue
OpenCL (BTW, I cannot find anything about this online. Is this still internal LOOKING to be an Open Standard???)
ZFS - Please...ZFS snapshots = Snappy Time Machine. And while you have those 4 cores, might as well do on the fly disk compression and save some drive space.

Snow Leopard is the enterprise targeted OS X.
Pull the Exchange support from iPhone into the rest of the OS
mobileme for enterprises (on Server)

I'm sure there's other things that just aren't coming to mind.

ZFS should be finalized and ready for Snow Leopard. I think there is a good chance it will be used as the default filesystem.

As for enterprise support, it seems as if Apple is moving in that direction. We learned earlier this year that they will be supporting Exchange on the iPhone and now that .Mac will be rebranded and support Outlook and Outlook Express as well as Bookmark pushing from Windows browsers. We also learned that Snow Leopard will support Exchange natively too. Is Apple pushing finally making a power play with the Mac in the workplace?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacRonin

As for those that say Apple won't release any 'new' features with Snow Leopard, I say Apple is just keeping it close to the vest and fully intends to make 10.6 a multi-touch OS and beat M$ out the gate (Windows 7).

And finally, I would say yes to dropping PPC support and moving to strictly Intel support from 10.6 forward

Apple has already invested so much useful R&D into multi-touch. Between the iPhone and the new trackpads they have such a useable system. MS' surface from a year earlier was so much more refined than their Windows 7 demo.

Scenerio 0x00...
I think they will be dropping 32-bit Intel AND PPC from Snow Leopard, but it won't be the last version of OS X to support those architectures. If we call SL 10.6, I think there will be a 10.7, say, Lion and a 10.8 Mountain LIon. Lion, like Leopard, will support PPC and 32-bit to allow for at least 4 years of support between compatible OSes. Lion will be the last OS X version to support 32-bit Intel and PPC.

Those that are still using non-64bit x86 machines will still be using Leopard just fine and still receive updates as usual, but all NEW Macs will come with the streamlines OS and those with modern Macs will be able to purchase the OS if they choose to.

Scenerio 0x01...
Apple does kill PPC and 32-bit Intel support with Snow Leopard and offer a newer version for older systems. Instead it extended the life of Leopard as a viable and modern OS by supplying point updates for longer than usual to make sure they support these aging machines. For example, Apple may take Leopard to 4 years old with 10.5.18, which would include new feature sets from Snow Leopard.

In both scenarios Apple will be supporting older hardware for the normal requisite timeframes while making sure that the newer machines are benefiting from an optimized OS X and modern frameworks. Sure, there will be people complaining, but there are always people complaining. From a sales POV, Apple fans seem to have more of a tendency to want the latest and greatest so this would help encourage new unit sales.

PS: Since Apple's come to x86 the ability to hack OS X and use on any cheap hardware has grown considerably. There are even cloning companies taking the OSx86 Project IP without permission and breaking their's and Apple's EULA. Just as the RIAA and MPAA can't fight piracy in the courts, neither can Apple. The best solution I see for Apple is to include HW authentication chips on new HW. This could be specialized chip made by P.A. Semi, even produced right there in California. If Apple wen this route, then even the current 64-bit Intel machines wouldn't be available for this update, there would be no retail option at all or it would defeat the purpose of the HW authentication, and users on older Macs would have to find something else to whine about.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

No...Apple has always been about "the whole package" and that includes hardware. Sorry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

Yes, there are the few that actually embrace change and push things forward faster.

Except when it comes to freeing the masses from that excuse for an OS called Windows. Apple can't have 95% market share for both software hardware, that would be an ugly monopoly that none of us want. Trust me, someday Apple will set OS X upon the PC world. It's just a matter of time.